Life, Presently

When I was in America over Christmas break, it was brought to my attention several times that I don’t blog often enough and that people don’t know what’s going on in my life. My deepest apologies. In light of this, giving the people what they want and what not, I’ve been trying to blog more often and with greater regularity. I hope to continue this. However, I’ve noticed my blogs don’t often focus on my life and instead highlight specific topics or incidents that occur, which I hope isn’t bad, but with this particular post, I’d like to catch everyone up on what’s been happening and what will be happening in the near future.

Here’s a handy list to follow.

1) Graduation just happened at school. This means saying goodbye to some of my favorite students who have been very influential in making me feel at home in Japan and in my classrooms. This makes me sad, but also happy, because several of them will be starting at AIU (the English-speaking international university in Akita) in April, so they will be in the area still and will be studying English rigorously. I am very excited and proud of them and look forward to being able to have coffee with them still and stay a part of their lives and educations.

2) Consequently, the new school year starts in April, so that means whole new classes of first years and a potentially complete reshuffling of staff. This can be either good or bad, depending on if I get teachers who are good, and lose teachers who are not so good (although I don’t really have teachers like that this year, so who knows). However, it could just as easily go the other way. Russian roulette : Japanese teachers edition. Everyone gets really stressed out this time of year.

3) The snow still hasn’t melted – which is extremely unusual for the area, since it’s usually gone by now. Winter needs to be over, because bullet trains are derailing and people are falling off their roofs and dying, and nothing looks pretty anymore, it just looks dirty.

4) In April I will be going to Hawaii for a week and will be visiting two graduate schools in Honolulu. They both offer teaching second language programs, in differing incarnations, and I have been corresponding with gradate chairs and financial aid departments at both campuses to set up meetings and find out more about my options and the programs themselves. Stay tuned.

5) Later on in April, during what is fondly referred to as Golden Week (a week when public holidays tend to stack up and give you many free days off in a row), I will be going on a trip by myself to Vietnam and Cambodia. It’s been awhile since I’ve vacationed alone (the last time was Ireland, spring 2010), and I’m pretty excited about it, since this is really the last international trip I plan on taking before I leave Japan. I haven’t really started planning this yet, other than getting visas sorted and booking flights, so if you have suggestions of places to see or things to do, please let me know!

6) Speaking of leaving Japan, I won’t be doing so this year. I decided to re-contract once again and, thus, will be staying on until 2014. This year’s decision was much more difficult to make than last year’s, but I’m excited to stay, and the main reason for that is I will be able to see my current second-years graduate. I have been really close with this class of students, and I would love to stay around and see their entire high school careers from beginning to end (they started when I started). Since high school is three years, there’s a nice symmetry in also staying three years. So, I will be.

That’s the big news! Thanks for being along for the ride, everyone.

Also, yesterday was the two year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake that wrecked the area, particularly eastern Japan. Many cities and towns are still recovering, and many people still live in temporary shelters. There remains a long way to go before life returns to normal for many people, so let us not forget those who suffer daily, even so close to (my) home.

Humorous KitKat wrapper